Leading figures in ballet reveal what Rudolf Nureyev meant to them

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Twenty years ago the charismatic dancer Rudolf Nureyev died. Debra Craine talks to those who came under his spell

In an era when Russian dancers are as common as stagings of Swan Lake ,
it is hard to understand the enormous impact Rudolf Nureyev made when he
broke through the Iron Curtain in 1961. A Soviet defector was glamorous
enough at the height of the Cold War, but a ballet dancer possessed of an
exotic beauty, a charismatic sexuality and a thrilling classical technique
was a prize beyond measure. For the next three decades, the flamboyant
Tartar cemented his reputation as the most famous male dancer in the world.
His celebrated stage partnership with Margot Fonteyn, his indefatigable
globetrotting, relentless